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Wednesday, February 15, 2012

9: Men Don't Listen (the Same Way Women Do)

The idea that we use only 10 percent of our brain is a persistent myth. What's not a myth, however, is that men use just one side of their brain to listen, while women use both sides. When men listen, the left side of the brain, which is associated with language, is activated, while both sides activate when a woman listens [source: BBC ].

Listening is but one task in which women seem to use their interconnected sides of the brain in ways that men don't. This doesn't imply that women are better listeners -- it just indicates that men and women listen differently. Because women are using more language processing centers, they may be able to multitask when it comes to conversing; they can surf the Web and chat at the same time. Men, on the other hand, may need to focus solely on the conversation at hand to process it, which may account for the numerous magazine articles that advise not bringing up a touchy subject during the big game.

Research from the University of Sheffield in England also indicates that men process women's voices differently than they do men's voices, perhaps because the women's voices are more complex and convey more information. When men listen to women's voices, it activates a part of the brain that processes the sound of music, but when they listen to men's voices, it activates a part of the brain that's associated with imagery [source: Epstein ]. Women's voices have more complex sound frequencies, but don't let a man use that as an excuse for not listening. It just means that you shouldn't assume that your guy has heard and understood the exact same thing that you just did.